The “F word”: The Uneasy Relationship Between Feminism and Technology

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Presenters: Jill Patrice Dimond (Georgia Institute of Technology), S. Revi Sterling (University of Colorado at Boulder), Caroline Simard (Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology), Zahara Khan (Sehat First)

Did you know that we are in a 3rd wave of feminism, and one of its most active arenas is technology? Yet, at most women and computing events, feminism is rarely discussed, while its principles are embraced. Why is the F word scary to women? In this panel, we will discuss the current state of feminist theory -- such as “technofeminism” and “Third-wave feminism” -- and questions that it invokes.

Barbora Dej, GHC 2009 Live Notetaker. I also blog on the official Grace Hopper blog at http://ghcbloggers.blogspot.com

My blog post on this session can be found on the GHC blog [1]

You can download the report from the "Climbing the Technical Ladder" study that Dr. Caroline Simard presented on at http://anitaborg.org/news/research/ and her slides are at http://community.anitaborg.org/wiki/index.php/Image:FwordGHC.ppt

People's responses to feminism

  • a video was shown on people's responses to the question: "are you a feminist?"
  • noticed that different people have a variety of responses, for example, one woman stated "Don't call me a feminist, how do you expect me to get a date this semester!", others embraced it (male and female), others said "I'm not a feminist, but I support women" which showed that some women are feminists only they don't want to be called feminists because of the perceived negativity of the term

We are different from men

  • feminism is about women being treated equally to men (economically, politically, socially)
  • we are different from men and it is misleading to think otherwise
  • this generation seems to try to avoid the word
  • should we give up the term entirely and adopt a new term? But feminism has so much history/success to it!
  • consider your relationship with feminism as we look at it with technology
  • we grew up taking what women did for us for granted: we say "that doesn't apply to me", "that's in the past"

Different types of feminism and lots of misconceptions

  • the agnostics: no I don't want to be associated with that
  • reluctant feminists: who thought feminism was a thing of the past and irrelevant, only to experience otherwise. Example: when she became pregnant, Carolyn's supervisor asked her if she's leaving and even tried to take away her scholarship. This got her to become a mother feminist.
  • warrior/trail blazer feminists: had to prove that she can be a woman technologist, sometimes act like a man to advance, but lost her own identity as a woman because wanted to be equal so badly
  • mother feminist: 70% of technical men have a stay at home wife, most technical mothers are part of dual career couples
  • the difference embracer: wants organizations and mentalities to shift to recognize and embrace differences. Doesn't want to have to use male behavior to fit in.

Technical men are feminists too

  • a man once said: "technical women in my company changed the entire culture, now I'm less macho, and don't show competition in an unhealthy way as much anymore"

How feminists can bring about change

  • reach out, recruit, and mentor to avoid repeating history
  • advocate equality and a re-definition of organizational culture to recognize diverse needs in terms of family configurations, families/communication styles, etc.
  • all these voices are important for the future of technical women

Pros and cons of feminism

  • liberal feminism: started with first wave of right to vote

- pros: easy to rally around, focus on equality - cons: easy to leave minority groups out, upholds masculinity as ideal

  • radical feminism: women try to be "manly" to fit in

- pros: include feminine experience - cons: questions current

  • postmodern feminism and queer theory

- pros: multiple truths, lens to look at structural shaping of gender - cons: no clear path of action, confusing/jargony, sometimes neglects other factors such as race

  • technofeminism and cyberfeminism

- pros: informs design process of technology, framework to look at tech and gender - cons: no single set of beliefs, hard to act upon

  • third world feminism: not same experiences as West

- trying to voice experiences of women around the world

  • other: ecofeminist, womanism/Africanism...

Feminism in Pakistan

  • Zahara Khan spoke via Skype
  • Pakistan still faces challenging issues, but progressing quite rapidly
  • 90 million cell phone users
  • technology can be used to empower women
  • both genders get maternity leave
  • don't see too many high level female positions because of restrictions (must stay at home, esp. at night, etc.) so technology sector has a lot of potential for women in developing countries to balance work and family life
  • telecommuting, women's virtual network, "word of good" project has online marketplace for both genders
  • Bangladesh: e-banking services to both genders (so can get loans if want to start their own business, Westerners take for granted)
  • get female voice get heard by cel phone, tv, radio, blogs, social networking... (not possible 7-10 yrs ago).... to expand businesses etc.
  • biggest challenge: take technology not as a means to an end (make sure relevant technology and relevant content)
  • visual medium good for those who can't read or write
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